Taro Aso, an often brash former foreign minister seen as the most likely candidate to replace Japan’s prime minister, said yesterday he believed good relations with China were an important part of Japanese foreign policy and shrugged off criticism that he was too hawkish.
Aso has widely been seen as the front-runner to replace Yasuo Fukuda, who announced his intention to resign last week.
While polls have indicated Aso has garnered enough votes within the ruling party to win its presidency when elections are held in parliament on Sept. 22, he has been criticized by some as being too outspoken.
In a debate with the four other candidates, he brushed off such concerns, jokingly introducing himself as the candidate “who has caused concern that he will make an enemy of China” and then saying such fears were unwarranted.
“We will live together with China,” he said. “Friendship is only a tool, the real goal is the co-prosperity of Japan and China.”
He also vowed to watch his words.
“As a national leader, I will not say anything carelessly, and I’ve been careful,” he said. “Please read transcripts of my remarks when I served as foreign minister. I’ve mostly managed to shut myself up just in time. So please feel at ease.”
Aso stressed the US remains Japan’s most important ally, and said Tokyo must continue to work in close concert with Washington on the international stage.
But he indicated that he would also press ahead with efforts made by Fukuda to bolster ties with Beijing. Relations with China sagged dramatically several years ago over territorial disputes, increased economic rivalry and visits to a war shrine by Japanese leaders.
Aso was foreign minister in 2005, while ties with Beijing were at a low ebb.
That year, a Chinese official described Aso’s remark that China is “beginning to pose a considerable threat” as “irresponsible.”
In 2006, China accused Japan of glorifying its militarist past after Aso reportedly said Taiwan had a high educational level thanks to improvements in literacy and educational standards when it was a Japanese colony.
On other issues, Aso said he would advocate fiscal restraint while pushing reforms to invigorate Japan’s sluggish economy.
“I will not build roads and bridges that are not needed,” he said. “I will trim such public projects.”
Meanwhile, Japan’s popular former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi threw his weight yesterday behind Yuriko Koike, who is trailing in her bid to become the nation’s first female leader, a lawmaker said.
Aso has taken an early lead ahead of the Sept. 22 vote to replace Fukuda.
A new poll showed that Aso also enjoyed a strong edge over the resurgent opposition’s leader Ichiro Ozawa for general elections, which are expected to be held within months.
But Koizumi, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister in recent times, was quoted as coming out on behalf of Koike, a former defense minister who has pledged to carry out free-market reforms from Koizumi’s 2001-2006 tenure.
“We have heard this message from former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi,” Seishiro Eto, a lawmaker who supports Koike, told a party meeting as he held up a sheet of paper.
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